Neither a Hostel nor a Hotel!

As I mentioned earlier, my place is unique. It’s not a regular house, not even like most of the townhouses around the village. It’s not an apartment building, either; some might have mistakenly thought of it as an apartelle. Still, others wondered if it’s a school since it resembles the school a block away. Not a bad idea. Although the original plan was to have an apartment, I could always convert it to a school of some sort. Just like me…always wanting the best of both worlds.

Goodness gracious! It’s a retirement place…OK, temporarily. Soon, we will be old, and I particularly wouldn’t want to navigate narrow flights of stairs that would be hard on my knees. One unit for us wouldn’t work. My husband wants his gym and music room, and the rest is mine to worry. That’s when I realized I’d better come up with a creative plan.

Creative, indeed! I have the first floor for my husband’s needs; after all, I have the rest of the floors at my own discretion. I thought of five 2-bedroom units that will rise on the 2nd and 3rd floors above us. The building had to be self-sufficient, with enough income to cover maintenance and sustenance of a senile couple – with huge extended Filipino family. Simple! Wrong, again!

From the outside, it looks like a commercial building, not a residential apartment. Problem #1—permits would be different, and fees a lot higher. Problem #2—neighbors complained: our 3-storey building dwarfed their allowed 3-storey homes/townhomes. And this is only the beginning. After three years of slow construction, even with the unexpected changes and challenges, I am grateful for the opportunity of having a place I could call home. Life is good despite all trials and tribulations as most wise men (esp. women) would say.

Having furnished the 2nd floor 1-bedroom units, I now have choices of 3 dorm rooms, 3 unfurnished units, and 3 furnished ones. Why sink in more money to have furnished units? In my moment of madness, I figured I can have long-term or short-term leases. My sister has reservations having foreigners on weekly basis. It’s a lot of responsibility for her – trail-blazing unknown territories…something new, though I suspect it would give her more headaches to polish her English than to keep the stairs polished.

I have to market my idea…fast; the internet seems to be the logical place to start. So, I thought. I could be wrong again. But it’s the one within my reach at this point. I’ve heard ‘let’s blog’ before; never struck a chord in me. Now, I must have been really desperate to start stalking bloggers. Somehow…my initial concept of ‘blog’ was very negative. I had visions of teen-agers wiling their time away and finding uncanny personalities to say the least. When I heard the blog site WordPress as a possible place to create some sort of a website, I decided to have a fresh look at blogging. What have I got to lose? I need to post pictures and information about our place. We need to work towards early retirement…enough motivation, I suppose. I’ve finally mustered some courage to get this in print!